THE UK'S LONGEST ESTABLISHED REGIONAL SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION
A Grand Time at Novacon
Novacon 47 GoH: Adrian Tchaikovsky
I had such a grand time at Novacon. I’ll be honest, I was in something of a fragile position when I visited, on the mend from some surgery, and I wasn’t sure what to expect of the event. I remember the programming was absolutely top notch, both on the science and the literary front, more than enough to take my mind off my worries. I remember getting to participate in some truly unique items myself, alongside some of the UK’s best and brightest authors.
There was a cracking art show (I ended up taking away a couple of pieces myself, for the first time ever), and more than all of that, there was a broad and generous welcome extended to me from a community of writers, artists, scholars and readers from a range of different backgrounds.
There’s a lot of UK SF history in Novacon, but at the same time the convention was pioneering new frontiers, novel topics and a global perspective on the genre. I was left with the impression of a convention that punches well above its weight, covers a lot of serious ground and still manages to be enormous fun.